SNS – Social Networking Service – it means social media in Japan, but as far as I know, it’s not a common use in the worldwide. It might be confuse.

Not in Japan, but in US and UK, SMS – Short Message Service – was very big.
But in Japan, SMS only worked on the same network when we were using “Galapagos Phone”.
DoCoMo users couldn’t send messages to au users, but in other countries, they worked on every network and they are much cheaper.

But also “Galapagos Phones” were pretty good at emails, but the other country’s phones were not good at internet, they are good at calling and SMS.
So, everybody used SMS all time, and SMS was a very common phrase.

Then, after smartphones suddenly we could use email well and like WhatsApp came up. If we are talking about SNS in other countries, they would be confuse and might think “Oh, really? Japanese people still use SMS? Why not use WhatsApp or something?” 😛

I went to Universal Studios Japan last week. I enjoyed it all day using Express Pass. – If we purchase it separately from park entry tickets, we can enjoy some attractions with shortened waiting times.

First, I rode BACKDROP. – It is one of the most scary roller coaster in USJ. We pulled up our back to a height of 43 meters, and then, we dived from the back of our head looking at the sky.
After that, I felt severe motion sickness..

After my physical condision was back, I enjoyed some rides and several Halloween attractions.

JURASSIC PARK THE RIDE – It was mainly just a boat ride. There were some robot dinosaurs and only last 20 seconds were scary. It was basically SPLASH MOUNTAIN, but with DINOSAURS.

WATERWORLD – It’s just a show. I heard Waterworld movie is not very good. The show is much much better than the movie, because the movie is 3 hours long, and the show is 15 minutes. But the show has all the good parts of movie.

And I was walking around.. I met the real SNOOPY♡!!
Universal Studios in America probably doesn’t have Snoopy. They don’t really have little kids frendly things. But Walt Disney World has a lot of characters, Mickey Mouse and Winnie the pooh, things like that.

Finally, I rode HARRY POTTER THE FORBIDDEN JOURNEY. – The 3D world was brilliant, but that also caused motion sickness.

I had a dinner and saw the magic show with my colleagues from my previous company last Friday.
The magician showed out some tricks and involved us, it was really amazing.

I’ve seen lots of magic on TV, but it’s no longer compare with the one which we watched the TV show when we were young.

I think in the last 10-20 years, the magic has been not so big, but some magicians came up with some really amazing/unbelievable tricks.
But I feel like some of those tricks have become more extreme.

For example, David Blaine, he is very famous magician, probably one of the most famous magician in the world over the last ten years, but his tricks are really extreme, really dangerous, scary or horror-able.

He has to be more shocking, more extreme than the previous his show, because maybe his last show was really shocking, if his next show is same, everybody would be disappointed.

Sometimes that is good, but sometimes maybe not good.

Harry Houdini, he was most famous for escaping from things, the stuff would locked him, put him in a box, put him in water, he have no air.
So he would have to escape at less than 1 minute, or he would die.

David Blaine took this idea, but he tried to do it more longer which means he has to have very good physical condition.

17 minutes 4 seconds – he held his breath.

This is not a magic trick.
Some magicians they go under water for like 10 minutes, but it’s a trick.

It’s very amazing that he could do this, but it was mostly boring.
On the one hand, it’s kind of clever, but the other hands, it’s not really a trick, just practice and preparing physical conditions.

When I visit other countries I always go to supermarkets, because I think going supermarkets gives me more true idea of local life or local culture.

Also, when we go overseas, we can go dutyfree stores but it’s not always “real thing”.
For example, if we go to London, Heathrow airport has huge dutyfree stores, and we can see a lot of British teas, British biscuits, and paddington bears, but I think English people don’t buy or eats those products.
It’s basically made for tourists, but if we go to supermarket, and we will find much cheaper, not beautiful package, but much more simple teas or biscuits.
These might not be stylish, but they would be much more “real idea” of what English people eat or drink regularly.

There are some import food stores in Tokyo, like KALDI,
they have a few british products, but I think English people never buy them,
because it’s international british products.

In 2003, TESCO supermarket came to Japan, but they left Japan in 2011 because they were not successful.
A lot of overseas companies come to Japan, and are not successful and leave Japan.
It’s very difficult for overseas companies to become successful in the Japanese market.
A few of them do, a lot of times they don’t understand the Japanese market, or the Japanese market is different the requirements or expectations are different, or the marketing method is different.
For example, as for Seiyu, they basically has the same strategy as wallmart, but it hasn’t been strongly successful.

And, existing companies in Japan which already control a lot of the infrastructure or supplies.
Probably a lot of existing Japanese supermarkets have deals with a lot of Japanese food companies and farmers.
So if new supermarkets comes to Japan, it’s very difficult for them to get products.

TESCO have been really successful in many countries except Japan and America.
They tried to Japan and they gave up, and they are still trying America.
The reasons maybe different.
In Japan, Japanese style is different from England, so it’s difficult for them to adopt their strategy to fit Japan.
The English strategy works well because of ~, but in Japan, Japanese people don’t care about ~, so it’s difficult for them to be successful.

In America, it’s opposite problem.
In England they are successful because ~, in America already many American supermarkets do ~.
So TESCO coming to America, there is no benefits, they have no advantage over existing supermarkets.
So they keep trying new ideas or new styles in America, but those new styles are not their core strengths.
I think TESCO don’t have some super key selling point, they are just a good reasonably price supermarket, but America already has a lot of those.
However, America is a big market, so they don’t want to leave.

There was an argument about that Alexa teaching kids to be rude,
so Amazon added some children’s mode.

When I was a kid, if I said “I’m hungry, I want some ice cream!”
then my mother would say,”What’s the magic word?”
and then I said “Can I have some ice cream, please?”
then, she would give me ice cream.

But kids growing up in houses with like Alexa, they are leaning to say,
“Hey Alexa, give me ~!”, “Hey Alexa do that!”…